MythDragon:Mercs was an awesome game. I remember the first time I called in a bunker buster. It hits the building with a little 'poof' and I was like "That's it?" and then about a second later "KA-FARKING-BOOM!". Even my character ducked, shielded her eyes (Jennifer Mui FTW!) and went "Holy fark!"

Mercs actually was one of those rare games where I played through to get 100% completion

awalkingecho:Yeah they do. They don't, however, really have the capability to do much with it. Unless they're going to ride up to the DMZ and ask if they can drop some off at Samsung pretty please...

Yep. China flattens them, contracts awarded to South Korean conglomerates for rebuild and the bulk of resources are sold to China. All to help make our iphones cheaper.

Sensual Tyrannosaurus:Forgot to mention, but if the media in China is critical of North Korea, then it's safe to say that the government also does not like them. They keep a pretty good focus on their messaging and generally the media is in line with the state's positions.

A journalist in China just got jailed for writing an article critical of N.Korea and calling for China to cut them off.

nekom:Vodka Zombie: I would feel kind of bad if we nuked North Korea. The people there are pretty much political prisoners and completely ignorant of the planet.

It would be like blowing up a box of kittens.

But, hey! You guys go ahead with your nuclear holocaust fetish.

No one is going to nuke them. EVEN if they used a nuke, I seriously doubt anyone would respond with nuclear weapons. A few precision strikes could eliminate their ability to make war with hopefully a minimum of casualties. What happens after the dust settles though, well that's the big mystery.

If NK nuked SK, we would probably not nuke them, hell if they nuked Japan (which in a Joker way would be farking hilarious) we would only respond with low yield munitions.....and then watch as a pissed off Japan became a full fledged nuclear power in a matter of farking days. Farking nipon nukes with tentacles and shiat. However. If NK nuked the mainland United States, somehow, maybe by giant sling shot or something, the sitting POTUS would HAVE to nuke them back, at least once. Not to send a message to the world, but to make sure that we didnt end up with a GoP majority rule and President for the next farking millennia. Any less of a response would be the death of the controlling power.

It's not really CT, China is making play into Africa for access to minerals and resources. North has a metric ton of mineral and metal resources as well, they just lack the technology and ability to get at them.

Here's the think about the north, though while they are cozy with China they technically do not let China in. They use China as a power chip play against the US and the west in general. In short, no one informed them that the cold war ended years ago, and we don't give a shiat about communism anymore, we just want our cheap electronics.

China is looking at this propped up dictatorship and for the first time actually weighing in the cost vs benefit ration and wondering if maybe just perhaps they either turn a blind eye for a bit, or handle the problem themselves if they couldn't be better off.

HMS_Blinkin: If they managed to get a warhead to an American city (which is near impossible) I would say the chances of us retaliating with nuclear weapons of our own are barely above zero. There's no point nuking a place that's that backward

For starters, I'm not so sure that getting a nuke into America is impossible. Our borders are far from air tight. Someone with enough determination and luck could sneak a payload within blast range the same way people sneak in trailer loads of drugs.

Second, we've got to consider that someone with one nuke might have two.Do we have time to wait for a conventional land army to dismantle that place?

Not that we'd want to encourage the use of these weapons, but we also wouldn't want to lose another city.

nekom:Vodka Zombie: I would feel kind of bad if we nuked North Korea. The people there are pretty much political prisoners and completely ignorant of the planet.

It would be like blowing up a box of kittens.

But, hey! You guys go ahead with your nuclear holocaust fetish.

No one is going to nuke them. EVEN if they used a nuke, I seriously doubt anyone would respond with nuclear weapons. A few precision strikes could eliminate their ability to make war with hopefully a minimum of casualties. What happens after the dust settles though, well that's the big mystery.

There's no mystery about what happens next in North Korea.

The North Korean population are an amazing resource ripe for exploitation. Because they have operated largely independently, they have skilled machinists, electricians, factory assemblers and labourers as well as a large unskilled labour pool that would be willingdelighted to work for, quite literally, peanuts.

South Korea are licking their lips at the idea of becoming an economic superpower in their own right from working North Koreans as a captive labour force. So are the Americans, so are the Chinese. The nations that should be lobbying hardest for peaceful integration between the Koreas with a Marshall plan funded jointly by China, America and South Korea are nations like Vietnam, Burma, Cambodia and other nations that attract factory jobs by being cheaper then China.

nekom:Vodka Zombie: I would feel kind of bad if we nuked North Korea. The people there are pretty much political prisoners and completely ignorant of the planet.

It would be like blowing up a box of kittens.

But, hey! You guys go ahead with your nuclear holocaust fetish.

No one is going to nuke them. EVEN if they used a nuke, I seriously doubt anyone would respond with nuclear weapons. A few precision strikes could eliminate their ability to make war with hopefully a minimum of casualties. What happens after the dust settles though, well that's the big mystery.

With some of the fuel-air and bunker bombs in our arsenal... we can achieve small yield nuke results, w/o the radiation... just conventional ordinance.

I actually don't think China will invade and "take care" of NK and here's my thoughts on why:

China's last official battle was in 1979, warfare has dramatically changed since that time and they are badly out of practice. The most their soldiers have experienced is running decades old drills or enforcing/bullying the farmer populace of rural china.

I think the movement of chinese forces to the border is actually to prevent a metric shiat ton of NK hillbilly refugees from flooding into china.

The US on the other hand is very experienced in modern combat and the way the media has sold it the US people in general think an invasion would be a walk-in-the-park operation.

So why wouldn't china let the US and SK do all the hard work?- US can waste more money on yet another war making it easier for china to pick up more bonds for dirt cheap.- China can use the treaty as a bargaining chip for NK's natural resources, by offering to break the treaty and lend NK no support should the US/SK forces invade in exchange for resource or mineral rights- China spends very little in the way of resources by staying out of the conflict.- China takes on minimal risk to the military and in fact has an opportunity to turn any border conflicts as a recruitment effort by treating NK like Asia's version of Mexico.

Seriously, by letting the US and SK flex their military muscle and even "letting" the US go to war with NK, it becomes a win-win-win situation for them...

MNguy:Sensual Tyrannosaurus: Forgot to mention, but if the media in China is critical of North Korea, then it's safe to say that the government also does not like them. They keep a pretty good focus on their messaging and generally the media is in line with the state's positions.

A journalist in China just got jailed suspended for writing an article critical of N.Korea and calling for China to cut them off.

way south:HMS_Blinkin: If they managed to get a warhead to an American city (which is near impossible) I would say the chances of us retaliating with nuclear weapons of our own are barely above zero. There's no point nuking a place that's that backward

For starters, I'm not so sure that getting a nuke into America is impossible. Our borders are far from air tight. Someone with enough determination and luck could sneak a payload within blast range the same way people sneak in trailer loads of drugs.

Second, we've got to consider that someone with one nuke might have two.Do we have time to wait for a conventional land army to dismantle that place?

Not that we'd want to encourage the use of these weapons, but we also wouldn't want to lose another city.

They're thought to have between 4 and 10 at present. That being said, if you think there aren't people watching satellites for each and everything larger than a bug moving on that peninsula right now and seeing where it's going, you've got another thing coming. Nothing is getting shipped here.

North Korea has now achieved one of its most-prized objectives: removal from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism. In exchange, the U.S. has received "promises" on verification that are vague and amount to an agreement to negotiate the critical points later. In the Bush administration's waning days, this is what passes for diplomatic "success."Link

awalkingecho:PanicMan: Listen, if you need food, just ask for food. If you need technology, just ask for it. We'll give it to you. In our country we give our children iPads and mini electric cars. These things are toys to us. The only cost will be you gotta lighten up a bit, and open up more. Tell us things. Tell us what you need.

You want to stay a farm country? Fine. But use modern methods so you can actually feed your people.

CeroX:Seriously, by letting the US and SK flex their military muscle and even "letting" the US go to war with NK, it becomes a win-win-win situation for them...

And the US realizes it, which is why its offering no food aid through western sources and is only doing shows of power. China and the US are two giants looking down at this petulant child and asking each other

INeedAName:I've been watching loads of West Wing lately. Into the 6th season now and I find it amazing how much stuff they got right. Pres. Bartlet comments that unless China steps in and smacks NK around, they're going to be the biggest threat to global stability since the Cuban Missile Crisis, and he just might be right.

In times of trouble, I am greatly relieved to know that we have top men watching reruns of the west wing....

China's last official battle was in 1979, warfare has dramatically changed since that time and they are badly out of practice. The most their soldiers have experienced is running decades old drills or enforcing/bullying the farmer populace of rural china.

I think the movement of chinese forces to the border is actually to prevent a metric shiat ton of NK hillbilly refugees from flooding into china.

The US on the other hand is very experienced in modern combat and the way the media has sold it the US people in general think an invasion would be a walk-in-the-park operation.

So why wouldn't china let the US and SK do all the hard work?- US can waste more money on yet another war making it easier for china to pick up more bonds for dirt cheap.- China can use the treaty as a bargaining chip for NK's natural resources, by offering to break the treaty and lend NK no support should the US/SK forces invade in exchange for resource or mineral rights- China spends very little in the way of resources by staying out of the conflict.- China takes on minimal risk to the military and in fact has an opportunity to turn any border conflicts as a recruitment effort by treating NK like Asia's version of Mexico.

Seriously, by letting the US and SK flex their military muscle and even "letting" the US go to war with NK, it becomes a win-win-win situation for them...

Because right now, they have NK separating 10billion US/SK troops from their border. If NK fell and we took over, we'd be way too close for their comfort

MugzyBrown:I don't know why people seem to think a fight with N Korea would be cake.

Because it would be, if we had ground forces in place. It's more like pie at the moment... we would have air superiority overnight. We could decapitate the CnC abilities and air defenses within a week. However, you can't win a war with air power alone. Something going down with NoKo would be something similar like we did to Iraq back in '91...where we had a few weeks to load in the ground forces. Sure, we can do amphib attacks better than anyone, but that's limited in scale. We would need at least 2-4 weeks to move in troops, tanks, supplies... but we -could- do so should the need arise.

DysphoricMania:With some of the fuel-air and bunker bombs in our arsenal... we can achieve small yield nuke results, w/o the radiation... just conventional ordinance.

Right, and couple that with our advanced GPS targeting and really, the political disadvantages aside, there really would be no tactical reason to use a nuclear weapon. Nukes would be essential if your accuracy is "We can get it within a mile of the target", but we can knock down a building and leave adjacent buildings largely untouched. We neither need nor want their cities lying in burning ruins, we simply need to destroy their capacity to make war, and that can be done pretty much with tomahawks alone.